The German philosopher Karl Marx famously said religion was "the opium for the masses." Friedrich Nietzsche, Charles Darwin and Sigmund Freud, along with a host of other notable thinkers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, were in adamant agreement.

In fact, most materialists - those who believe there is nothing but material, non-spiritual things in the world - consider the Christian idea of a human soul enjoying eternal life after death as nothing more than a coping mechanism to soothe the cruel reality of our death and destruction.

Without a soul, according to materialists, human beings are nothing more than physical processes made up of simple atoms that are animated by the laws of nature.